


mountain high, valley low, river wide

by bullroars



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Infinity Gems, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Multi, Peter's a dirty thief, Post-Canon, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 18:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2119470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an infinity stone separates the guardians of the galaxy.  an infinity stone did not think this through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Still so into this movie it's ridiculous, I don't know if I'm ever gonna think about anything ever again. 
> 
> This is going to be mostly about the Guardians, though some Marvel-wide crossovers will be happening! Apparently Infinity Stones have all kinds of powers besides just blowing shit up, so I got _curious_ and I love separating characters from each other, it's just really interesting?
> 
> I have no idea how long this is going to turn out to be--I have an outline that has it ending after seven chapters, or so, but these things have a tendency to mutate on me so we'll see.

mountain high, valley low, river wide  

  

Peter wakes up to the sound of shouting.  This isn’t unusual—Ravagers are loud by default, Rocket’s pissy in the mornings, and wherever Peter goes there’s a decent chance he’ll incite an angry mob or something because he can’t keep his hands off shiny stuff.  This doesn’t sound like Rocket, though, or the Ravagers, or even  _angry_ yelling.   It sounds like panic.  

Peter staggers to his feet—since when was he sleeping, anyway?—and tries to get a handle on the situation.  Pain flashes up his side and one of his lenses is cracked, splintering his vision.  There’s smoke everywhere and the ground at his feet is broken.   

 _What…_?   

Peter has  _no idea_ what he’s doing here, wherever here is, and why there are dozens of beings ringed around him, pointing and shouting.  

“Woah, hey, everybody chill out!”  he shouts in Common, hands raised.  He can’t make out anyone’s faces, really, not with the smoke and the shattered eye, but no one looks like they’re gonna fry him, which is good.  The last thing he needs are hostiles.  “It’s okay, I’m just a little lost.  Has anyone seen a giant talking tree?  Trigger happy raccoon?  I’d come up with something for Gamora but apparently her reputation precedes her so, anyone seen Gamora, daughter of Thanos?  Green, tattooed, mountain of a guy?  Anybody?  No?” 

The screaming, if anything, gets louder, and the crowd jumps several steps back.  They’re shouting in a language Peter doesn’t understand—doesn’t help that his ears are ringing—and he frowns underneath the mask.   

His chest really, really hurts.   

“Anybody speak Common?”   

More screaming from the residents of whatever planet Peter apparently crashed on.   

“No?  Xandarian?  _Does anyone speak_ _Xandarian_ _?_ ”   

Again, nothing but screams.  Tough crowd.  That’s about all Peter’s got linguistically—everyone in his corner of the galaxy speaks Xandarian, and everywhere else Common.  He’s got no idea where he is, but he seriously doubts that any of them know Ravagerspeak, so.  Cool.  Injured, mod damaged, stuck on a planet where no one speaks his language and his friends are missing.  Awesome.  

Peter steps awkwardly out of his little crater—that’s why his chest hurts, then, he hit the ground hard enough to cause a fucking crater—and rolls his eyes when the screaming sharpens in pitch.  “Just chill out,” he snaps, even though no one understands him.  “I don’t wanna be here either, trust me.”  

The crowd responds with, you guessed it, more screaming.   

“Forget this,” Peter mutters, limping towards the least-crowded area of his little disaster zone, and that is when someone starts shooting at him.  

The shots strafe the ground in front of him, kicking up earth, and Peter doesn’t yelp, nope, not at all.  “Woah, woah, hey!”  He throws his hands in the air.  

There’s a dude in the sky.  Like, legitimately just hovering there, wings and exoskeleton and all, and he’s pointing something  _very, very_ nasty-looking right at Peter’s head and okay, yep, time to go.  

Later Peter’ll blame the concussion because running from an armed person with  _wings_ on a planet you don’t know is an embarrassingly bad idea, worst plan ever, but, at the time, it seems perfectly reasonable, and Peter  _runs._  

People scatter around him, and he doesn’t know where he’s going or how to make Big Bird up in the sky leave him  _alone,_ but there’s a collection of buildings not too far from his crater and he makes a dash for cover.  

(Peter doesn’t usually do well against  _flying opponents._ That’s why he always got arrested on Xandar.  Bastards could fly and corner him a lot faster than he could run and get away.  He thought this was cheating, and told Dey so more than once.)  

Big Bird, naturally, gives chase.  If there was a city nearby Peter could probably ditch him in a building or something, but as it is he just got wherever the fuck he is and doesn’t wanna rack up breaking and entering charges already, so he sticks to the streets and hopes Big Bird smears himself down a building.  

More shots ping off the ground at Peter’s heels, each one getting dangerously closer.  Man, everything fucking  _hurts,_ he feels like he’s been shot already, then tossed around like a rag doll besides, and he decides, abruptly, “Forget about keeping the peace,” yanks his guns out of his belt, and opens fire.  

The energy blasts fly wide, mostly—he can’t see out of one eye, okay, it’s not that he can’t shoot he straight-up can’t  _see_ —but one clips Big Bird in the wing and he goes down.  

Grinning, Peter turns to keep running—he can totally outrun a flightless bird, that’s perfectly doable—and sees a flash of red hair, and a huge blonde being with an oversized Frisbee at the other end of the street giving Peter the stink eye.  

He raises his guns calmly.  “Hey, guys,” he says, and Fireball and Prince Charming—the guy totally looks like he stepped out of one of those Disney movies Peter’s cousins were always forcing him to watch—don’t so much as twitch.  Brave motherfuckers.  “Nothin’ personal, okay?  I just wanna go on my way and find my friends, so—” 

Prince Charming throws the Frisbee with enough force to knock Peter back into somebody’s wall, and yep, that’s rib cracking  _for sure,_ thanks oversized Frisbee, and the last thing Peter thinks for a while is,  _God fucking_ _damnit_ _Rocket is never_ _gonna_ _let me live that down._  

\--- 

Rocket is having a very nice dream, for once.  The details are a little fuzzy, but he's on a bed of shiny units, some kind of dangerous weapon tucked under one arm, and Groot's somewhere humming in his weird, happy way, filling Rocket's chest with buzzing contentment.  So, yeah.  Good dream.  

'cept somebody keeps poking him, and that's gonna get real old  _real_ fast.  

"Stoppit," Rocket grumbles, rolling away.  Units dig into his back uncomfortably.   

More poking.   

"Cut it  _out,_ " Rocket snarls.  He ain't fuckin' around, not when the poking is distracting him from nice, rich,  _safe_ dream.  "I swear 'm gonna cut the next oneaya who pokes me in  _half_ \--" 

Another poke.   

"That's it!"  Rocket shoots up and out of his dream kicking and snarling, ready to blow Wandering Hands to fuckin' smithereens, Quill's standing "Do not fuck with the locals Rocket  _please_ " order be damned. 

('sides, Quill's the one always makin' off with any precious cultural artifact that isn't nailed down, so his rule is stupid anyway.) 

Rocket's foot comes into contact with something soft and furry, and he freezes.  

He blinks the last of the dream away (shaddup, he ain't cryin', he's just really gonna miss his piles of dream money), and meets several pairs of black, shiny eyes.  

"Aw,  _fuck._ " 

\--- 

Drax is dragged from his crater still conscious, a fight still in his twitching limbs, and he jerks against the ones holding him and  _roars._ He remembers--fear, and pain, and friend Peter shouting, the smell of human blood hitting the air, and heat and blinding light-- 

"Release me!"  he thunders, still blinded with green.  "Unhand me and my friends!" 

The hands supporting him let him go, and Drax falls to his knees.   

He recovers, as he usually does, and stands, shouting for his companions.   

Not one of them responds.  Not Gamora, not Peter, not Rocket or the dumb tree.  Drax doesn't smell blood or bodies.  They're just...gone, and Drax does  _not_ appreciate people taking his friends away.  

"Warrior," a voice cries.  Drax cannot see but he can here and smell, and he smells fear.  "Brave warrior, spare us your fury!  We are not the ones who harmed you." 

"Where are my friends," Drax growls, turning towards the sound of the sniveling one's voice.  "Release them to me or I shall--" 

"Mercy!"  the voice calls, and Drax stops, because they are not calling to him in Common, they're calling to him in his own tongue, words he has not heard in a decade.  

"You speak my language," he says, dumbfounded.  "How do you speak my language?" 

"Brave warrior," the voice says, "you are on the Homeworld, did you not know?  Can you not see?"  

 _The_ _Homeworld_ _?_ Drax has not been to the Homeworld for half his life--after he married the mining colonies had the best work, and he had to provide for his wife and child.  The Homeworld had been at peace for a hundred sun-turns.  There was no use for a warrior.   

"I cannot," he says, because he does not lie, though Peter has been teaching him.  Drax can  _fib,_ apparently, whatever that means, but Peter has yet to get him lying.  Peter is disappointed.  "Who are you?" 

"This one is called Stel, of the healers," the voice identifies itself.  "And this one's companion is called Orel, an apprentice.  Brave warrior, please sheath your weapons.  You are among healers only; we shall not harm you." 

These people smell like Drax's people, and so they also cannot lie.  Reluctantly, he sheaths his knives.  "Where on the Homeworld am I?  Have you seen any other strangers?" 

"We have not, honorable one," says Stel.  He seems keen to stick to protocol, proper manner of address, proper respect.  "Apprentice Orel and I saw you descend from the sky in a pillar of light.  There was only you, no others.  Are you missing your horde?"  

Horde.  Drax has not had a horde since Ronan came to his colony.  "Healer," he says.  "You must take me to the nearest port.  I must leave this planet immediately."  He needs to find Peter and Gamora and Rocket and Groot.  They are injured, and alone, and without Drax to defend them.  And the Stone-- 

"Leave?"  The apprentice, Orel, speaks, and his tone does not have the difference that his master's does.  "Warrior, you have been long gone from the Homeworld.  No oneis permitted to leave." 

\--- 

 _We shouldn't have touched the stone,_ Gamora thinks, rolling the pain out of her shoulders.   _Really, really should not have touched the stone._  

In their defense, there hadn't seemed to be another option at the time.  The Blood Brothers were gaining on them, a pod of Chitauri closing in, and they'd figured,  _hey, we did it once, why not try it again_? 

The first time Gamora and her friends had touched an Infinity Stone, they had held its power and told it where to go.  This time, the Inifinty Stone had seized  _them_ instead, and now Gamora's alone, in a crater, in a place that smells like ash.  

"Peter!" she calls hoarsely, into the stifling silence.  She doesn’t know where she is but there's no wind, no sounds of people or anything alive at all.  Gamora  _prays_ that the Stone didn't kill her friends.  "Drax!  Rocket!  Groot!"  

Nothing.  Gamora very pointedly does not panic.  If she survived the Infinity Stone's... whatever, then the others must have to.  Groot, for sure, because as long as there's a stick left he'll grow back.  Drax too, because he's practically indestructible (Gamora's only made the mistake of punching him barehanded _once_ ), and Peter because they're  _still_ figuring out that his mysterious, ancient father passed on some strange kind of durability to his idiot son.  And if they survived Rocket did too, because Rocket's not one to let other people show him up.  

 _Alive,_ she tells herself.   _They're all alive._  

Carefully, Gamora climbs out of her crater and tries to get her bearings.  The first thing she thinks is,  _flat._ Almost unnaturally so--she doesn't see so much as a hill all around her, and no temples or other buildings.  The second thing is,  _something burned this place to the ground._ Everything, even the sky, is the same dark sooty color, and Gamora sinks to her ankles in ash when she takes a step.   

The ash is old, too, cold on her skin, so it wasn’t the Stone, which means Gamora's not on the same planet as her friends anymore but at least she's not walking on their bodies.  

"Peter!" she calls again, walking through the ashes.  She's hurting and sore, but nothing's broken, and for all she woke up in a crater Gamora doesn't feel like she was bombed.   

No one answers.    

Unease prickles down Gamora's back, but at least it's not blind panic.  Her teammates are probably still alive, she's not critically wounded, and the Blood Brothers are nowhere to be seen.  She's been in worse situations.  All Gamora has to do is find a settlement, contact her friends, and they can get the Stone--without touching it, this time--get it somewhere Thanos will never find it, and get back to being the Guardians of the Galaxy.   

 _Oh god,_ she thinks,  _I just called us the Guardians of the Galaxy._ (Peter's been trying to get that name to stick for  _months_ now, and Gamora privately likes it, but she likes annoying Peter more.  Any time he mentions the Guardians, Gamora says, innocently, "Who?") 

Gamora keeps walking. There's no point in panicking--on a strange world, without any friends or allies, that could get her killed, and she's pretty good at compartmentalizing.  Gamora pushes the fear and worry away as best she can, and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other.   

Gradually, the flat, ashy plain ticks upwards,  a gentle rise onto another plateau.  The landscape is punctuated with broken buildings, wooden spars jutting out from piles of ash, a few slabs of rock wall left standing amid the ruin.  

 _People lived here._  

It's not fear that worms its way down Gamora's back.  Wariness, maybe, watchfulness, anxiety.  She's never liked visiting places like this.  Peter loves it, says some of the best stuff can be found in old abandoned places, but this place doesn’t look like it was abandoned, it looks like it was bombed to pieces.  

Gamora keeps going, picking her way through houses and streets.  The ash is thinner here, and she can see broken bits of technology scattered around, dull with age, bits of bone, a child's toy, tossed out into the street.   

The sense of anxiety heightens.   

 _I know this place,_ she thinks, or maybe her fear thinks.   _I have walked here before._  

She rounds a corner, and recognizes her father's house.   _Oh,_ she thinks.   _The Infinity Stone sent me_ home.  

\--- 

They end up calling Stark, because if anyone's got a place to keep a trigger-happy, homicidal alien now that SHIELD's gone it's him, and because they call Stark and Stark's an asshole Steve ends up on hold, Nat ends up driving, and Sam ends up watching said trigger-happy, homicidal, hopefully very unconscious alien while he hangs onto his seat and tries not to die. 

(Nat is a very European driver.) 

 _Alien,_ Sam thinks.  Really it's all he's been able to think since he saw that burst of green light slam down from the sky, not a mile from where he and Steve and Nat were hunting--sorry,  _looking for,_ politely, with no intention of hauling him back to D.C. should they manage to catch him this time--the Winter Soldier.  

At least he's finally stopped muttering "Alien"every few minutes.  

This alien is vaguely human-looking, at least, not like those things that swarmed New York two years ago.  Sam doesn't think he'd be able to sit in a car with one of those.   

Its one good eye glows brightly.  The other one is cracked and put out, hairline fractures spreading across most of the thing's... face, Sam would call it, though it looks more like a mask than a face.  

Maybe it can't breathe on Earth, or it's hideously ugly, or something.   

Sam kinda wants to poke it, but he has the hole in his wings to tell him why he shouldn't do that.  At all.  Ever.   

"Oh, Dr. Banner, thank god," says Steve, sounding relieved.  "I thought Stark was gonna keep me on hold forever--oh, he's not in?"   

Sam rolls his eyes.  He's only met Tony Stark once, and he can totally see Stark putting Steve on hold even though he's not in his Tower.  He's just that kind of guy, apparently, though when Nat deals with him he's nothing but helpful and maybe a little terrified.   

"We've, uh, got a guest," Steve says.  "And he needs a place to stay." 

Sam can hear Banner sigh.   

"Oh, it's on the news?  Yeah, yeah, we've got that one.  He's unconscious right now.  We've got nowhere else to put him," Steve cajoles.  "SHIELD's not exactly a viable option, I can't turn him loose, and if I kill him we might start an intergalactic incident and the last one was more than enough for me." 

"I don't wanna spend the rest of my weekend sitting around waiting for it to wake up and shoot me again," Sam adds helpfully.  Nat makes an agreeing sound.  

Banner sighs again, very, very loudly. 

Steve smiles.  "Yeah," he says, "okay.  We'll be in New York in a few hours.  Thanks, Banner."  He hangs up and turns to Sam.  "He says they've got a few containment units for the Hulk in the Tower.  We can stick this one in there until Thor comes around and talks to him."   

"Thor can talk to aliens?"  That makes sense, Sam guesses, in a weird way.  Thor's an alien too, though he's a chill alien who likes Pop-Tarts and drinking contests and not shooting people with crazy ray guns.   

Steve shrugs.  "Thor can talk to everyone." 

"It's called the Allspeak," Nat says helpfully.   

"Okay," Sam says, "let's dump Crazy-eyes over here and then get the hell away from the inevitable explosion.  Sound like a plan?" 

Steve frowns.  "Inevitable explosion?" 

Sam rolls his eyes.  "Cap, everything you're involved with ends up in explosions.  Explosions follow you around like little ducklings follow their mama.  You are the mother duck of explosions." 

"He's got a point," Nat says, lunging around a  _semi,_ Sam's gonna pretend he didn't see that, maybe he can fool his heart out of attacking.   

Sam snorts.  "You're no better," he says.  "It's a miracle I'm still alive, really.  Any time you two are involved, everything always ends up going wrong." 

\--- 

Peter wakes up with a brain-splitting headache,  _again,_ and feels like he's gonna cry.  Everything hurts.  That crazy huge Frisbee thing felt like it should've killed him.  Peter's glad that it didn't, of course, but still.   

He wants to curl up into a ball and listen to Awesome Mix Vol. 2 until he feels better, or until Gamora kicks him out of his self-pity.  (The latter is, traditionally, more likely to happen than the former.)   

Peter freezes.  _Gamora_ _._ The last thing he remembers is running away from Big Bird and Prince Charming, taking Big Bird down, and that damned Frisbee crashing into his chest and taking _him_ down.   

He doesn't remember seeing even a flash of Gamora.  Or Groot, or Drax, or Rocket.  They would've come to help him if they'd been around, so either they've been taken too or Peter's  _alone._  

He's not sure which is scarier.  

Peter opens his eyes.  He can't move--doesn't want to, anyway, hurts too much--and he's propped upright, hands and feet tied together by some kind of flex-y white thing.  He's moving, and he's sitting next to Big Bird, who's watching him warily.   

Peter keeps his breathing slow, and doesn't twitch.  He's played possum to great effect before.  Maybe it'll work again, and then Peter can ditch these crazies, steal that Frisbee, and get the fuck off whatever planet he crashed--literally crashed, his mask is cracked and he feels pretty cracked too--on.   

 _Fucking Infinity Stones,_  he thinks.  He doesn't remember what happened, exactly--he remembers a few weeks ago, getting a call from Nova about a stone on a planet in Skrull territory, and Rocket bitching about Skrull being maniacs but agreeing to go anyway, and then nothing.   _Fucking glowing fucking rocks doing fucking weird shit,_ fuck.  

Prince Charming and Fireball are up front, controlling whatever they're in.  There's a little screen between them, flashing words Peter can't understand.  He doesn't know if that's because his translator's busted or he's got a concussion.  

 _Gotta_ _get out of here,_ he thinks.  He flexes his wrists, trying to get a feel of the strength in his cuff-things.  They're pretty strong, but he  _might_ be able to snap them, if he had his guns-- 

Peter happens to look up, searching for his guns or really anything that could help him get out of here, and catches a flash of outside.  

Skyscrapers, some of the biggest and most imposing Peter's ever seen, rear up in the distance, a skyline as distinctive to Peter as Blue Swede.   

 _Oh, shit,_ he thinks.   _I_ _'m on_ Terra.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longish wait! I moved into my new apartment and had a very hard time writing Groot. 
> 
> That aside, thank you so much everyone who's taken the time to read, leave a comment, and drop some kudos!! The response to this story has been overwhelming and I'm just, I love you people a lot, okay, you're wonderful. 
> 
> Some notes: Rocket's planet is called "the Halfworld," and is inhabited by animals, some weird kind of humans called "the Loonies" and apparently a bunch of robots. I'm sure this is going to end in explosions. 
> 
> Groot's people are called Flora Colossus and his planet is called Planet X in the comics. I think it's weird that an alien species identifies itself with bastardized Latin and calls its planet "X," so in here Groot's people refer to themselves as the Big Flowers and they call their planet Ellery, which means "island of elder trees."
> 
> Drax's people and culture are based on a more socially stratified society; there are specific classes of people, such as warriors, healers, clerics, priests, etc etc, and they don't really intermingle. Seeing as Drax hangs out with an assassin, a couple of thugs, and a thief, he's gonna be viewed as something of an oddity. 
> 
> As for Peter not speaking English; the movie says that he's got a translator implanted into his neck, but after 26 years I'd assume that he's picked up the common language and a few others besides. The Ravagers seem pretty insular, so I'd also assume that they have their own bastardized language as well, probably more of an informal, slang-type thing than an actual defined language with proper syntax and grammatical structures. 
> 
> World-building as we go!
> 
> Thank you to the person who told me Gamora's planet was called Zen Whoberis! The movie seemed to spell it really oddly and I could not figure it out.

moutain high, valley low, river wide

 

 Soft earth.  Roots singing, a planet's song traveling up through his trunk and down his branches, coaxing leaves from his body. 

Delicate vibrations running up his roots.  A hum.  _Littleonewelcome_ , he hears, from the depths of the earth. 

He unfurls his roots, winding them deeper past rivers and rocks, careful to avoid other roots.

_Connect,_ the earth urges, gentle and warm.  Sunlight living in the ground.  _Connectjoinbeone_. 

_No,_ he thinks, drifting down into the earth.  The sunlight recoils. 

The planet of the Big Flowers is alive. 

Humming, the earth pushes against Groot.  Water and healthy soil nudge at his roots, encouraging him to grow deeper, to twine himself around the roots that run through the planet like seams of gold, pulsing with sunlight, with memory, with groves and forests and other Big Flowers.  Everything interconnected. 

_Saplingfindgrove,_ the earth says.  _Notalonenoteveralone.  Growtallandstrong._

Groot's been tall and strong, though.  With Rocket on his shoulders, his not-grove tucked beneath his branches.  He doesn't need the planet, or the Arbor Masters and their selected knowledge to grow tall and strong again. 

Groot hordes his memories from the planet like treasure, and the light recoils again.

_Connectjoin_ connect.

_Will not,_ Groot thinks.  _Cast out.  Not of this planet any more._ He can't tangle his roots in with the others because it's forbidden--the Arbor Masters banished him, tore his roots from the earth and threw him into the Wastes to die.

The planet had been sad for him then.  It might not remember him now.  It has been many hundred rings since Groot has been rooted in this soil.  The planet is big, and old.  It can't remember every Big Flower that walks its surface, not even a blighted one such as Groot. 

CONNECT, the planet demands, hum a buzz, song a chant.  _Joinyourpeople. Findyourplace._

_Place is elsewhere._ A ship.  A pot finally outgrown.  Rocket on his shoulders. Peter and Gamora underneath his arms. Drax at his back like a sentinel. 

The planet shoves, demanding.  Everything on Ellery is connected.  The planet to the roots, the roots to the Big Flowers, the Big Flowers to the Arbor Masters and the Arbor Masters to the sky and the earth, tangled and tangled again. 

(It was the maintenance mammals who taught Groot to wander, to disconnect.  They showed him how to uproot, and move on.) 

Roots reaching up through the depths of the ground, insistent and fast.  Groot can't uproot himself fast enough. 

Entanglement, and sunlight.

_Connect,_ the planet whispers to him, winding itself in and around and through him.  Groot's roots thrash, but he's still hardly more than a sapling, roots young and thin.  Strong enough to fight most other mortals but not strong enough to fight a planet, or its songs.

_Connectlearngrow,_ the plant hums, sunlight rising and blotting everything--everything--out.  _Beatpeace._

Peter's face slips away.  Gamora's.  Drax's.  The _Milano._ Xandar, Ronan, Infinity Stones purple and green.  Prisons.  Loud noises, bright lights, the thunder of blasters and guns and fire.  Rocket.  Leaves in a river sweeping away from him, and sunlight--

_Beatpeace,_ Ellery whispers, rooting Groot to itself. 

And Groot is. 

\---

Somewhere between the crater and the nine hundredth big fuckin' tree, Rocket gains himself a _posse._ Sure, he's always kinda wanted one, but in his fantasies-- _plans for the future,_ dream big, Rocket--he's got one made up of muscley thugs who like explosions and laugh at all his jokes.

This sorry group of beady-eyed, chittering... _things_ sure as hell ain't that. 

"Leave me alone, damnit," Rocket growls, for the thousandth time.

"Tch-eek-eek-eek-cht," says one of the things, for the thousandth time. 

Rocket's gonna kill it.  He really, really it.  He's gonna blow it up and use its fur as a fuckin' coat, Nova Corps and their wishy-washy "89P13 that's called murder" laws be _damned._

(Rocket's really, really, _really_ not lookin' too hard at the shape of their faces, or the way their tails sweep from side to side when they're studyin' somethin'.  He's not, he don't even wanna go there.)

_Ain't nothin' like 'em,_ he thinks savagely, kicking roots and smacking vines out of his way. 

(Sidenote:  Rocket fuckin' _hates_ jungle planets.  They're hot, smelly, and the humidity makes his fur fluff up like a goddamn _poodle,_ whatever that is.  Quill, breathless with laughter at the sight of Rocket so fluffy up he could barely walk, hadn't been too clear on that.)

"Ain't nothin' like you," Rocket tells Eek-cht (shaddup, ain't like he can call it "that thing" for much longer, 'specially since there's like seven of 'em hangin' around), who's apparently real interested in sniffin' Rocket's ass.  "I can walk, I can talk, I'm wanted on sixty-two planets--I can count to sixty-fuckin'-two--what can you do, huh?  All _you_ can say is 'eek-eek-cht.'"

"Tcht-eek-cht," Eek-cht agrees, nose drifting close to dangerous territory.  Rocket growls and shoves its snout away. 

Undettered, Eek-cht and its merry band of fuckin' fuzzy, stupid, senseless _raccoons_ follow Rocket through the thick forest, ears flicking and tails twitching to ward off mosquitos. 

Rocket hates mosquitos.  Doesn't know why--damn things don’t bother him much, too many chemicals in his blood or somethin'--but he  _hates_ 'em, and he hates Eek-cht and the raccoons and he hates the jungle and he hates bein' marooned on some godforsaken planet without his tech and Groot and the rest of his idiots. 

(Rocket's rapidly approaching what Quill calls "Wet Cat Mode."  This usually only happens in bars after some dumb fuck gets handsy and thinks Rocket looks soft or somethin'--he ain't _soft,_ okay, it's just Quill's weird humie shampoo that makes him all silky and shiny--and has a minimum safe distance of a good half-mile.)

"Prrt," Eek-cht says, bumping its head against Rocket's arm. 

"Fuck _off_ ," Rocket hisses, shoving Eek-cht away. 

"Prrt," Eek-cht insists, and the rest of the--what's a buncha these things called, anyway?  A gaggle?  A pack?--raccoons copy it, thumping and nuzzling and "prrt"-ing whatever inch of Rocket they can find.

Rocket's fuckin' civilized, okay, and he fights like any civilized being--with really, really big guns.  Every once and a while he's gotta resort to kicking and brawling, sure, but he's civilized, he _does not bite_ , not unless he's really, really, "let's blow up a moon" provoked.

He's pretty provoked. 

Rocket bits Eek-cht square on the nose. 

It's not his best idea.

Eek-cht screeches, clawing at Rocket's face, and the rest of the pack snaps and snarls, grabbing mouthfuls of Rocket and digging their heels in.

There's seven of them and one of Rocket.  He's a hell of a fighter, but he's outnumbered and tired and not used to fighting feral.  They get him pinned and trapped in less than a minute.

Eek-cht climbs onto Rocket's chest, a determined glint in those bright, beady eyes.

_This is it,_ Rocket thinks.  _Taken down by some fuzzy lower life form, some Guardian of the fuckin' Galaxy I turned out to be_ \--

" _Prrt,_ " says Eek-cht, firmly, and starts grooming Rocket's matted fur.

For several long, stunned seconds, Rocket can't even think.  Eek-cht's not even bein' _weird_ about it--she's (and it is a she, some part of Rocket can suddenly recognize her smell as female) carefully licking up the blood and the dust and whatever else he's collected since he ended up on this freakin' planet. 

"Cut it out," Rocket grunts, but it's not like he can get up and 'sides, it's kinda sorta _nice._

None of Rocket's friends know a damn thing about grooming.  Sure, Peter uses up all the hot water and Gamora spends hours brushing and braiding her hair.  Drax might clean each one of his bajillion scar-tattoo-things and Groot can grow or remove his body parts at will, but none of that's _grooming,_ and none of them groom each other.

So Rocket's got into the humie habit of bathing, and when Gamora's not lookin' he'll swipe her brush and smooth things out, but he hasn't groomed himself or been properly groomed in years.  Maybe never--he can't remember anything before wakin' up with cybernetics in his chest and back. 

And 'sides, lettin' Eek-cht ain't _terrible,_ exactly, it’s a little weird, but Rocket's had a shitty few days, okay?  Even before a fuckin' Infinity Stone decided to wrench him away from his friends and slam him here, wherever that is.

The Blood Brothers were _tenacious_ (big word, courtesy of Drax) motherfuckers.  They'd hounded Rocket and his friends across half the quadrant, nearly killed 'em going down onto X8692--a neutral, non-aggression zone--and had been seconds away from killin' Peter, had they not all grabbed hold of the Stone.

They were gonna use it to blast the Blood Brothers to pretty little bits, like they'd done to Ronan the Pissbaby.  Rocket guesses that the Stone had other ideas. 

"Alright," he grumbles, after he's had enough--a guy can only take so much coddling--"Quit tryin' to socialize me, okay, I ain't gonna bite'cha again." 

"Grr-eer-tch-k."  Eek-cht eyes Rocket, obligingly letting him up.

"Yeah, yeah, grr-eer-tch-k," Rocket says.  "Move, c'mon."

The rest of the pack lets Rocket go, apparently satisfied. 

"Buncha pervs," Rocket mutters, climbing to his feet and smoothing his fur down.  (He's not ever gonna admit it, but he feels--a lot better than he did.  Certainly less like he's gonna skin anything that holds still long enough.  He thinks that might've been Eek-cht's goal.)

Eek-cht chatters at him.

Rocket grunts, not interested _at all_ in hangin' around any longer than he's gotta.  Grooming and bonding's nice and all, whatever, but he's got a buncha idiots to collect and a few mutated freaks to kick around. 

"Scram," he says, and Eek-cht and her pack just follow him along happily, chittering and chattering to each other.

"You're talkin' 'bout me, ain'tcha?"

"Grrt-cht," a smallish one says.

"Fuckin' knew it."  Rocket misses Groot and his paws still ache where he grabbed the Infinity Stone.  He wonders where the others are.  He can't even really smell them.

The last thing Rocket remembers before wakin' up surrounded by this pack of weirdos was grabbing the Stone, and pain, and green light blotting everything else out.  How he got from a dusty little temple on the edges of civilized space to _this_ hellhole is a big ol' blank.

_Fuckin' rocks._ Rocket elbows his way through the jungle.  _Don't even get why Thanos wants 'em so bad, they're nothin' but trouble_ \--

"Chk-chk-chk!"  Eek-cht's chattering takes on a sudden, sharp quality, echoed by the others. 

"What?"  Rocket sniffs the air; nothin' smells unusual to him, just the same old shit he powers through every day.  But Eek-cht is afraid--her fur bristles down her spine and she grabs at him, clumsy with her paws, traying to keep him from moving forward.

She ain't sayin' it in so many words, but she doesn't want Rocket to go any further.

He grins.  Looks like he's finally found a way to ditch these losers. 

Purposefully, Rocket leaps forward, shoving aside the last few branches and vines.

He stops.  Corroded steel and ancient iron tear up into the sky, ragged buildings rising as far as Rocket can see, right up against the edge of the forest all the way back to the horizon.  The whole place stinks like a portside slum, with just an undercurrent of something... humie. 

_'splains why I didn't think anything smelled weird,_ Rocket thought, dumbstruck.  Eek-cht pressed behind him, refusing to set paw over the--surprisingly, weirdly very clearly-defined--division between the forest and the city. 

"Eek-cht," Rocket says, "where the hell are we?"

\---

The healers take him, still blind, to the head of their Order.   The head healer's name is Kahzan, and he does not know what to make of Drax.

Drax does not know what to make of Kahzan, either.  _It is strange,_ he thinks, _to be on the Homeworld again._   He recognizes certain things.  The smell of the air, the feel of the tough ground beneath his feet, the sounds of a Healing Order, murmuring and grinding medicines and tending to patients. 

But Drax cannot, try as he might, remember what the Homeworld _looks_ like.  He married young, as soon as he won his first markings, and together he and his wife left for a mining colony at the edge of Nova space as soon as their joining had been recorded by the Clerics. 

When Drax thinks of _home,_ he thinks of a lush moon, a warrior's hut settled atop a hill waving with purple grass, mines sparkling with precious gems, and his wife practicing in the courtyard, her knives flashing beneath the double suns.

Once Cammi was born, Drax had no need to remember the Homeworld.  He had a horde, a beautiful, strong wife, and a precious daughter.  Home was where she was.

After Ronan came, his broken horde limped off to hide their shame and Drax did not think of _home_ again. 

"When I last left," Drax says, addressing Kahzan, "the Homeworld had known a hundred sun-turns of peace.  There was no war here, and any who chose to could leave to make their glory."

"Many suns of war have turned since you left, honored warrior," Kahzan says.  Stel is steady at Drax's elbow.  "Destruction has been wrought upon us at every turn, by the Accuser, by the Mad Titan, and by worse."

"Worse?"  Drax snorts.  Little, he thinks, is worse than Ronan was, or Thanos is.  (He has not met the so-called Mad Titan, but Gamora fears him, and she is the bravest creature Drax knows.)

"Worse," says Orel the apprentice, anger in his tone.

_You have a poor temperament, for a healer,_ Drax thinks.  (He does not say it out loud--Peter is working on improving Drax's "negotiation techniques.")

"The Weeping Plague came from the Doq River and took millions," Orel continues.  "A fourth of the continent was lost to the sea in its wrath.  The colonies--"

"Apprentice," Stel snaps.  "Control yourself.  You amongst your betters."

"Apprentices who wish to achieve mastery must first master themselves," Kahzan agrees.  Drax has no patience for this. 

To Drax's left, Orel hisses a curse.   It would seem that neither does he.  "Your honesty is admirable," Drax says.  "As is your courage.  Forgive me.  I have been gone long, and know nothing of the Homeworld's plight.  Why has travel been forbidden?"

"Why have you been so long gone, honored warrior?"  Kahzan asks.  Drax's brow furrows.  He believes that was what Peter calls _changing the subject.  "_ Where have you been?  Why have you not heeded the High Horde's call?"

"I served in a mining colony on the third moon of Skoll, at the edge of Nova space.  My horde was stationed there to protect the miners, and share in their spoils."

"Honorable work," Kahzan says.  He has a light, airy voice, one that irks Drax extremely.  He swore to friend Peter and Denarian Dey that he would not remove anyone's spines, but he is sorely tempted.

"My colony was destroyed nine Nova years ago by Ronan the Accuser."  Drax does not want to talk about this.  "My horde was destroyed and the remnants fled the system.  I alone remained, until I could find transportation off the moon and deeper into Xandarian space."

"We thank you for your sacrifice," Kahzan says, sounding puzzled.  "But why did you go into the Nova's domain?  Why did you not return home?"

"The Accuser killed my family," Drax says flatly.  "I wished to kill the Accuser."

A hiss goes around the room, and both Orel and Stel step away from Drax.  He can feel their sudden unease. 

"You pursued the Accuser for sun-turns," Kahzan says.  "You pursued him on  your own?"

"I did."

Murmuring breaks out.  Drax wishes he could see their faces, whether they were twisted in disgust or in fear.  A warrior without a horde is dangerous, or pathetic.  Either he does not heed his horde-master's commands and endangers others, or he is too weak to earn a place, not worthy of companionship and knives at his back.

Drax's markings indicate that he is a warrior of great strength and honor.  Skulls for enemies slain, words and patterns for victories won, enemy hordes defeated.  He is not too weak to earn his place.

"Warrior," Kahzan says slowly.

Drax cuts him off, impatient.  "I abandoned my horde," he says.  "They did not abandon me.  I had to kill Ronan."

"The Accuser will not come here," Kahzan says firmly.  "And you must stay, which means you must again find a horde.  The High Horde does not tolerate outsiders.  The _pemhov-nuvpu'_ are less than a hundred thousand now.  All must play their part in rebuilding us."

"I will not stay," Drax says shortly.  "And Ronan is dead."

Kahzan falls into silence. 

"Dead?"  says Orel the apprentice. 

Drax turns towards the sound of his voice.  "Dead," he confirms.   "Slain by an Infinity Stone he tried to overcome."

 "You were there?"  Kahzan demands, the gentle dreaminess leaving him.  "You saw the Accuser slain?"

"I did," Drax says.  "He is dead."

"Healer Stel," Kahzan says.  "Ready the chariots.  We must meet with the High Horde at once."

Drax bares his teeth.  "I do not wish to meet with the High Horde," he rumbles, ready for a fight.  "I wish to _leave,_ and immediately.  You must have spacecraft.  You cannot hold me here."

Somewhere in the audience, Drax hears the sound of a knife sliding free of its sheath. He grins.  A challenger.  He will prove his prowess in battle, then, and he will be set free, so that he may return to his friends. 

"I can and I must, hordeless," Kahzan snaps.  "You will submit to the will of the High Horde."

"I will not!"  Drax has had enough.  Negotiations have failed.  Peter will groan at the trail of bodies Drax will leave in his wake, but he will understand.  Drax tried it Peter's way; now he will try his own.

He leaps towards the sound of Kahzan's voice, knives drawn and flashing.  He slashes empty air, but the sound of swishing robes tells him that he almost hit his target.  "You will not escape me!" 

"I will not," Kahzan agrees, and then something very hard strikes Drax in the back of the head. 

He has a moment to think, _That was very underhanded,_ and then he knows nothing else. 

\---

In the years since his creation, JARVIS has played host to many, as Sir has dubbed them, “interesting” individuals.  He has seen politicians, super soldiers, assassins, various military and SHIELD personnel, heiresses, crowds of drunken partiers, and both of Dr. Banner’s forms pass beneath his cameras.  Wild ragers, Sir’s nighttime escapades, more than one distressing attempt on either Sir’s or Ms. Potts’ lives.  JARVIS has, quite frankly, seen nearly everything.

He has not, however, played host to a hostile alien.  (Loki does not count--if JARVIS had his way, the would-be conqueror would have never crossed his threshold.  As it were, JARVIS was offline in the Tower at the time and thus unable to electrocute Loki.  Sir says that JARVIS is developing “revenge tendencies,” and Sir sounds quite pleased by it.)

When Captain Rogers had called, JARVIS had immediately put in an order to have one of the containment units converted into a cell.  (After, of course, he kept the Captain on hold for forty-two minutes, as per his programming.)

Five-point-two percent of JARVIS’ coding is dedicated to protecting Earth from hostile aliens--up from one point nine percent before the Chitauri invasion--and he had yet to fail his programming.  Captain Rogers said he had a captive alien who had fired upon humans, and so JARVIS got the house in order, so to speak. 

“Captain Rogers, Ms. Romanoff, and Lieutenant Wilson have arrived, sir,” JARVIS says.  “They have one as of yet unidentified life form with them.  It is restrained and appears to be unconscious.  I have directed the Captain to use one of Mr. Stark’s private elevators.  The containment unit is ready.”

Dr. Banner nods distractedly.  “Everything’s secure?”

“Yes, sir.”  Twelve-point-eight percent of JARVIS’ programming is devoted to security, of both his creator’s home and the general population at large.  For this occasion, JARVIS allots an extra two-point-three percent.  The Tower is as safe as he can make it, given all of the information he has.  “I have also alerted Mr. Stark.  He will be back from California in four and a half hours.”

“Agent Hill’s handling the press, right?”

“Deputy Director Hill scheduled a press conference for three PM,” says JARVIS.  SHIELD has been disbanded for several months now, but JARVIS still has Maria Hill as ‘Deputy Director’ in his systems.  Sir has many secrets, even from JARVIS, so the AI assumes that the mislabeling is intentional on Sir’s part and does not correct it.

“Good,” Dr. Banner says.  He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face.  (Two-point-two percent of JARVIS’ programming is devoted to reading and translating human body language.  Dr. Banner appears exhausted.  Quietly, JARVIS asks Dummy to prepare a cup of Dr. Banner’s favorite tea.)

Dr. Banner smiles up at the ceiling.  “Shall we?”

“Lead the way, sir.”  Of course, JARVIS is also with Captain Rogers and his companions, escorting them to the containment unit, but he can multitask. 

Dr. Banner rounds the corner just as Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Wilson--who looks distinctly unhappy--drag the hostile to an illuminated circle and leave it in the middle.  It is unbound now, and not moving.

“Containment sequence initiated,” JARVIS intones.  The floor sinks down smoothly, taking the alien with it, concrete and steel sliding neatly into place as it goes. 

“If you will follow me.”  JARVIS lights a path down the hall and a set of stairs, taking Dr. Banner and his guests down to the observation room.  One of the walls is opaque, allowing viewers to look into the containment unit.  The alien remains still. 

“Is this safe?”  Captain Rogers asks.

“Quite.  These units were built to contain the Hulk should an incident occur.”

“I designed them myself,” adds Dr. Banner.  “Tony and I tested them out pretty thoroughly. They’re made of synth glass and concrete, reinforced with vibranium fillings.  They held me and Tony in his suit.”

“You didn’t see this thing come down,” Lieutenant Wilson mutters.  “It left a crater in the ground the size of my car.”

(As a matter of fact, JARVIS _did_ see the alien come down to Earth.  Sixteen-point-four percent of his daily duties involve processing and archiving the news and media. 

He saw, the moment it was uploaded onto YouTube, a pillar of green light erupt from the sky in Bristol, Tennessee, making cloud-to-ground contact in a park outside of a local hospital.

Further analysis, and JARVIS’ superior imaging capabilities, showed a figure in the center of the pillar, approximately six-foot-two, struggling to stand. The pillar of light intensified, becoming almost white to the human eye, and the figure collapsed.  The light faded, leaving smoke and a crater.)

“So what are we looking at, JARVIS?”  Ms. Romanoff says, watching the alien. 

JARVIS obligingly boots up a basic scan. “The subject is a humanoid being, approximately six feet and two inches tall,” he begins, reviewing all of the gathered cell phone footage that’s been uploaded to the Internet since the alien made contact.  “It is bipedal, capable of speech but not recognizable to English-speaking humans, and fights with a pair of firearm-like weapons that fire energy instead of bullets.  Its clash with Lieutenant Wilson shows that it is fast and agile, capable of planning and executing its plans.

“It appears to be wearing some kind of mask on its face.  This mask has significant damage, and there is a ninety-one percent probability that it can only see out of one eye.  The other appears to be non-functioning.  A small source of energy can be found on the right side of its head.  Statistically this is most likely the power source for its mask.  The probability of it being injured is high.”

“Is it one of the species we know about already?”  Dr. Banner asks.  “A lost Asgardian maybe, Chitauri, whatever Loki was?”

“The energy signature the creature gives off do not match any archived,” JARVIS reports.  “It is not Chitauri, and does not appear to be either Asgardian or Frost Giant.  Nor is it a Dark Elf or any species identified by Thor’s records.”

“Energy signature?”  Captain Rogers is frowning.

“Every living thing gives off energy,” Dr. Banner supplies.  “Even trace amounts.  As far as we can tell, these signatures are pretty uniform across a whole species.  After the invasion, Tony and I gave JARVIS some scanners, so he could identify energy signatures that weren’t human.”

“Humans produce small amounts of electric energy,” JARVIS says.  “It is very easy to distinguish.  Asgardians such as Thor have energy signatures that trend more towards the types of energy found in deep space.  The Chitauri also had an electrical signature, but one much stronger than that of humans.”

“And this guy?”  Lieutenant Wilson asks.

“It is difficult to identify,” JARVIS says apologetically.  “It seems to have three signatures at once.”

“Three?”  Ms. Romanoff sounds concerned.

“Three,” JARVIS confirms.  “One more like a human’s or an Asgardian’s signature—that is, organic—and two other signatures.”

“Nonorganic?”  Dr. Banner cuts in sharply.  “How so?”

JARVIS scans the alien again.  He scans it a third time, for good measure, and compares the results.  Sir is not going to like this.  “Sir,” JARVIS says, “the alien has two energy signatures that match that of the Tesseract.”

\---

Gamora very specifically does not panic.  Much. 

Okay, maybe she takes one look at her parents' home and runs as fast and as far as she can in the opposite direction, but Gamora does not panic. 

(It occurs to her, a few kilometers out, that she's reacting like Peter would.  She does not stop running.)

When she gets her hands on that Stone, she's going to smash it into tiny little pieces, semi-sentient, ancient, universal singularity or not.

Ash sinks under her feet, giving way to hard ground.

Thanos does not think of the Infinity Stones as anything more than tools.  Weapons to be wielded as he sees fit, and then kept on Sanctuary under his careful eye until he has use for them again.

They're something to desire, and possess, and control.

Gamora can empathize. 

But Thanos is _wrong._ The Stones are not just tools.  They're self-aware, if only to a limited extent (Peter says the first Stone _talked_ to him), and they cannot be controlled or commanded, only persuaded, and what they want often does not line up with what anyone else wants.

Today's disaster (at least, Gamora assumes it has only been a day.  It is possible the Stone managed to warp time as well as space, but that prospect is horrifying and makes her head hurt, so she pretends it does not exist) is proof enough of that. 

Gamora doesn't know what the Stone hopes to gain by tossing her out here.  There's nothing on Zen Whoberis for it.  There's nothing here for anyone.  Which means the Stone is punishing her, implying a greater consciousness and malevolence than previously thought, or it simply arranged space-time to carry her where it thought she belonged. 

She's not sure which is more terrifying. 

_Stop,_ she tells herself firmly.  _Either way you are here and the Stone is there and your friends are stars know where.  The Stone's intentions are not the priority.  The priority is_ leaving. 

_Think of it like a mission._

Gamora has completed hundreds of missions over the years, and she's been in worse situations than this one.  Survival is never a guarantee, but Thanos--and more recently, Peter--taught her that the odds can be stacked in your favor.

Step one: stop running.  Take inventory.

"Minor bruises and lacerations," Gamora says aloud.  The sound of her voice is a welcome break from the still, stifled silence.  "No serious wounds or injuries, though I spent an unknown amount of time unconscious.  I was transported from an unclassified moon in the Drox system to the ruins of Zen Whoberis by an Infinity Stone after touching it."

Gamora flexed her fingers.  They still ached, like she'd been electrocuted.  "The Infinity Stone is not with me.  My teammates are missing, either on the moon or on their own homeworlds.  I have my sword, but no food or water.  I am approximately five kilometers from the village of Zen Throm.  I have no means of transportation or getting off the planet."

A familiar calm is settling over Gamora, mending her frayed confusion and blocking out her worry. 

Step two: objective.  "I need to get off Zen Whoberis."  Easier said than done.  Rocket could probably salvage something out of the ruins and build an impossible ship that defied the known laws of physics, but she certainly can't.

Still, she has a goal.  Get off Zen Whoberis, get back to Skrull space, find her friends, and get the Stone. 

It sounds impossible, but Gamora's shared the power of an Infinity Stone, destroyed a madman, and saved a planet of twelve million people.   

(More impressive, she's spent five standard months on the tiny _Milano_ with three idiots and an admittedly adorable baby sentient tree. 

Five months of Peter using all the hot water and singing his Terran lungs out in the middle of the night.  Of Drax challenging her to spars every time she breathes in his direction.  Of pulling Rocket's fur out of her brush and tripping over his bombs, and cleaning up dirt and leaves after Groot learned how to walk.

_She has this._ )

Step three: plan.  Zen Throm had been a farming village--they'd had no need for spacecraft. 

But Zen Whoblis had a port.  Gamora remembers visiting with her mother, staring up at shiny ships with wide, wondering eyes. 

Zen Whoblis should be twenty-three kilometers north of of Zen Throm.  There should still be a river nearby, and not all of its ports had been aboveground. 

Maybe there's a ship that survived Thanos and the Badoon. 

"To Zen Whoblis, then," Gamora says, setting her shoulders.  An objective and a plan.  She can do this.  She is going to get off this burned heap of ash and bad memories, and she's going to find her friends, and she's going to defeat the Blood Brothers and the Chitauri and Thanos himself if she has to, and she's going to hurl an Infinity Stone against a wall until it decides to _behave._

Reassured and refocused, Gamora sets out purposefully across the ash plain.

She doesn't see the ash move, or the eyes watching carefully from behind scraps of standing stone and metal.

\---

Peter passes out again sometime after Big Bird and Prince Charming haul him out of the car--the honest-to-god Terran _car_ \--so he's out of it for his little trip through the tower, his unbinding, and the increasingly invasive scans the room subjects him to as it tries to identify his energy signatures.

He dreams of two shadows, one purple and one green, and of New York City going up in smoke.

"Nng," Peter says, clawing himself back into wakefulness.  His vision doubles.  "Man, I'm getting _really tired_ of wakin' up on the floor."

He doesn't sit up.  Even twitching his fingers kinda makes him wanna throw up, so he's just gonna hang out on the floor for a bit and see if anything stops feeling like Drax tapdanced on it.

(Drax, unfortunately, does not dance.  Ever.  At all.  Peter got him drunk and convinced him to try, once.  _Once._ It ended in two broken ribs, a city fire, and six weeks of Dey-mandated community service.)

_I'm on Terra._ Blue, backwater,  _utterly irrelevant_ Terra, and no spaceports between here and Io. 

Infinity Stones fucking _suck._

That's the only thing Peter can come up with.  Somehow, the stone in Skrull space must've done _something._ He and the others must've found it, and somehow it dumped him _here_ , right into Big Bird's lap. 

Now if only he could remember how he got from point A to point B (and why he feels like he went through an Andorian meat grinder somewhere along the way) that'd be awesome.  Like, really, truly wonderful, he'd _love_ to know, because he's drawing up a big ol' blank.

_At least this one's not talking to me,_ he thinks dryly.  The other one, Ronan's Stone, had.  He couldn't understand it, of course, but it _had_ talked to him, felt at him. 

"Probably was speakin' English," he mutters.  That's what's really pissing him off.  Sure, his translator's busted, but it's his native language!  He should be able to speak it, right?

But when he thinks about it, really thinks, he's thinking in Common.  Most often when he's muttering to himself it's Ravagerspeak.  Xandarian's good for cursing and he's got a good few bits of Zatoan to throw around, the barest hint of Skrullian ("Hello," "Fuck you," "I like your houseplant," and "Die you lizard scum," exclusively), words and phrases in Krylorian and Kree and Shi'ar and Froma. 

And then when he reacches for English, all Peter can think is, "I'm a space invader," which, yeah, probably a bad thing to blurt out on a planet full of trigger-happy humies.

_It's just a concussion,_ Peter tells himself.  _I'll remember how to say,_ hey, please don't shoot me! _in no time._

Gingerly, and very, very slowly, Peter sits up.  The world inverts violently, but he doesn't throw up or pass out again, so hey!  Progress. 

The room--cell, it's a prison cell, just without any barred windows or harmonica solos--is creepily blank.  Smooth white paneling and light from the floor and the ceiling make the place seem bigger than it is.  A sleek cot is tucked into one corner, a toilet into the other.

( _Huh,_ Peter thinks, momentarily distracted, _a toilet, haven't seen one of those is years._ )

 There's nothing in the room that Peter can recognize, no cameras or any tech like that, but he feels like it's _watching_ him, for some reason.

"Please," he says out loud, "please tell me you guys haven't created sentient rooms since I've been gone, _please._ "

The room, thankfully, is silent. 

So, he's trapped.  Big Bird, Prince Charming, and Fireball probably aren't far away, and he's building held by somebody--probably them--and no one can understand him.  Are they going to dissect him? Run tests?  That kinda shit is outlawed in most parts of the galaxy but Terra's always been an exception, left out of imperial decisions and being rights committees and what not.

If they dissect him, they're gonna be real disappointed.  Peter's pretty sure his insides are mostly human. 

"I have to get out of here."  He can't get off Terra alone, not without a ship, but there's gotta be some tech on this planet that he can reconfigure to send a signal out to the outpost on Io.  He can get off this rock and back to his life--assuming the Infinity Stone hasn't been captured by some nefarious party, in which case life's gonna end anyway so it's whatever--and never set foot on Earth again, which is really quite fine with him.

Peter wishes that Rocket was here.  Rocket can escape anything.  Peter's not so good at that.

Shakily, he stands up. 

Everything goes white around the edges, but he doesn't fall down.  Awesome.  Gettin' better every minute. 

Peter limps around the confines of his cell, checking for any flaws in the structure, gloves skimming the wall.  It's smooth, and the paneling doesn't give way when he pries at it experimentally.  He doesn't see a door or windows or anything at all, just smooth, clean lines.

His cot is welded to the floor.  Same with the toilet.  He's strong, but he's not Groot or Drax.  Those ain't coming up. 

Temporarily defeated, Peter sits down on the cot.   "You ain't keepin' me here long," Peter says.  "I've got better things to do than hang around Terra with you losers.  Uncivilized motherfuckers don't even speak Common," he adds to himself, bitterly.

His head really, really hurts. 

Peter sits for a few minutes, thinking.  The inside of his mask feels sticky and wet.  His gloves itch where they cling to burned skin.  His coat is a mess. 

Out of the corner of his eye, a shadow edged with green fire flickers. 

Peter frowns.

There's something--on the other side of that wall.  It's smoother than the others, no paneling, and there's something or someone on the other side of it, Peter can _feel_ them. 

They're watching him.

He gets up.  Walks over to the wall.  Puts his hands on the smooth, cool surface of it, his one good eye seeking movement.

_There,_ he thinks.  A shadow.  _It's a mirror._

They're watching him. 

Peter slams his fist on the mirror.  And again, and again.  Nothing.  It won't break, that'd be too easy, but he knows they're watching and he's _pissed off,_ okay, he's had a shitty day and these people speak a language he should understand but can't, he has no way to tell them who he is and what he wants and it makes him _so mad,_ and green light dances around the edges of his vision.

"Let me _out,_ " Peter roars.

A cool voice breaks in from the ceiling, clipped and commanding.  Cool, so the room _is_ sentient, that's awesome.  Way to go, humanity. 

Peter slams his fist against the mirror again.  It vibrates under his hands.  "Let me out!"

The voice from the ceiling keeps babbling at him, meaningless, familiar words.  Nonsense. 

Peter bares his teeth, staggering to the middle of the room.  "Where are you?"  he demands.  "Where are you, huh?  Why are you keeping me here?  I didn't do anything!" 

The voice rises in volume and okay, moving around?  Horrible idea. 

Peter goes down for the fourth time in less than a day, limbs folding and mask bouncing off the cool floor.  _Nice floor,_ Peter thinks fuzzily, everything going blurry and dark _again.  Don't worry, floor.  I don't blame_ you _for holding me captive._

Clumsily, he reaches for his mask, fingers slow, and deactivates it.  He's not awake to see it to collapse on itself, or to notice the light in the corner of the ceiling blinking frantically, calling for help. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gamora's up next time! I'm here on [tumblr](alanaism.tumblr.com) if you have any questions or wanna come say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> We will see Groot next chapter! I'm still having a hard time figuring out what I want his style to be, so yeah, that's a work in progress. 
> 
> in the comics Drax is a human in an alien body. In the MCU this doesn't seem to be the case, so he's a straight-up alien with a homeworld. Rocket's home planet is called the "Halfworld," and Gamora's is??? Apparently destroyed. 
> 
> I probably won't be writing from the POVs of the Avengers, but Sam will probably show up again, as will some other MCU characters. 
> 
> I'm [here](alanaism.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you wanna come say hi!


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